THE MIDDLE EAST’S

1. Fadi Ghandour

Company: Wamda Capital
Designation: Executive Chairman
Nationality: Jordanian
Headquarters: U.A.E.
Established: 2014

Ghandour founded Wamda in 2010 after successfully exiting Aramex, which he cofounded and led as CEO for nearly 30 years until 2012. In June 2024, Wamda Capital led U.A.E.-based AI startup qeen.ai’s pre-seed funding round, securing $2.2 million. Ghandour took Aramex public twice, first on Nasdaq, then on the Dubai Financial Market. He is also the founder of Ruwwad Al-Tanmeya, a non-profit community development organization. He was previously a founding partner of Maktoob.com, which was eventually acquired by Yahoo in 2009.